We would like to thank the following companies for supplying and supporting us with our test system hardware and equipment: Intel, ASUS and Corsair.

While the new Ivy Bridge platform is the latest from Intel, the Sandy Bridge-E X79 continues to be the highest end offering and for that reason, we'll continue to use it as our main testbed.

On that note we don't see any changes happening on the testbed front, so let's just look at the other video cards we'll be including in our graphs today.

Along with our overclocked PowerColor offering we've got the reference clocked HD 7950 and the reference clocked HD 7970 which is the main video card we'll be comparing the PowerColor video card to against today. Along with that we've also included the HIS video card which we overclocked to over 1100MHz on the core.

To round out the AMD side of things we've also got the HD 6990 here for good measure. On the NVIDIA front we've got the older GeForce GTX 580 and the new GTX 680 both at reference speeds. We've also included our overclocked GTX 680, though, at 1199MHz on the core and 6808MHz QDR on its 2GB of GDDR5 memory.

Let's get started!

The FPS Numbers Explained

When we benchmark our video cards and look at the graphs, we aim to get to a certain level of FPS which we consider playable. While many may argue that the human eye can't see over 24 FPS or 30 FPS, any true gamer will tell you that as we climb higher in Frames Per Seconds (FPS), the overall gameplay feels smoother. There are three numbers we're looking out for when it comes to our benchmarks.

30 FPS - It's the minimum number we aim for when it comes to games. If you're not dropping below 30 FPS during games, you're going to have a nice and smooth gaming experience. The ideal situation is that even in a heavy fire fight, the minimum stays above 30 FPS making sure that you can continue to aim easily or turn the corner with no dramas.

60 FPS - It's the average we look for when we don't have a minimum coming at us. If we're getting an average of 60 FPS, we should have a minimum of 30 FPS or better and as mentioned above, it means we've got some smooth game play happening.

120 FPS - The new number that we've been hunting down over recent months. If you're the owner of a 120 Hz monitor, to get the most out of it you want to get around the 120 FPS mark. Moving from 60 FPS / 60 Hz to 120 FPS / 120 Hz brings with it a certain fluidity that can't really be explained, but instead has to be experienced. Of course, if you're buying a 120 Hz monitor to take advantage of 3D, an average of 120 FPS in our benchmark means that in 3D you will have an average of 60 FPS, which again means you should expect some smooth gameplay.